Dartmoor Training Centre, Dartmoor Forest, Devon

 

This isn't about the buildings as such, but instead it's an article documenting four days spent on a training course here in 1991. In fact, the above photo is the only decent one of the building itself and that was taken right at the end before our journey back, along with the one below.

I have a lot of these photos - all black and white - as I was taking a City & Guilds module in Photography that year, and I intended using them to make a photo documentary for my finished project. As it happens, I chose another topic consisting of interesting buildings around Exeter instead. Architectural photographer in the making!

Set in the beautiful Devon countryside, the centre is next to the West Dart River and the nearest town is Princetown.

Interestingly, the bridge across the river is called Prince Hall Bridge and is a Grade II Listed Building. You can just about see its single span arch through the trees, seen below. A build of granite, which is plentiful on Dartmoor, it was erected circa late 18th or early 19th century.

Although it was only four days in duration, the course was jam packed with adventure activities; outdoor ones during the day plus two evenings for an optional night walk - one of which I went on and thoroughly enjoyed - video evenings for those who stayed in and an evening at The Plume of Feathers pub in Princetown to play skittles.

 

We arrived just after monday lunchtime, were put into smaller groups and did some problem solving in the afternoon. Then in the evening we had the first night walk. A really useful idea was numbering the participants instead of using our names, so every now and then we were stopped and had to say our numbers in sequence to ensure no-one was lost or wandered off. It was much quicker and easier than trying to remember names or match them to a list.

Self-catering, each group took it in turns to cook meals and make lunchpacks for everyone.  Our first full day was on the tuesday, and it was our turn in the kitchen, so our morning activity was close to home and consisted of problem solving involving two suspended cannisters. The object was to make the top cannister heavier and displace the bottom one, seen in the photos above and below.

After lunch we walked around the forest by Belvador Tor where we practiced orienteering and had other problem solving activities. Dartmoor is famous for the sparse countryside with tors, which are hills topped with granite boulders where erosion has brought them to the surface. and its own brand of half-wild ponies. However, there are also forests and smaller woods along with farm land and a more typically British countryside. It's a very large National Park.

 

These first set of photos were really bad, which is probably why I decided not to use them as my C&G project after all, plus I wasn't able to take photos of everything whilst participating in some of the activities.

This particular evening was the pub visit, which was good fun playing skittles and an opportunity to socialise with others on the course.

Then on the Wednesday we went kyaking on the River Dart, which I absolutely loved, followed by raft building in the afternoon. I have no photos from that day as I didn't want to risk my camera on the water, so I just concentrated on enjoying it instead. In the evening we had a project of making a video, which was a bit of a taster before my university course of Media Arts & Design Arts in the coming Autumn.

Then the last activity day on the Thursday was called Operation Buzzard. Our groups were mixed up so that we could work with some different people as well as activities we hadn't tried so far.

Oh absolute terror! Those who've read a lot of my blog articles might know that I am horrendously acrophobic. I can't even stand on a stool without getting vertigo! Anyway, our first activity was abseiling, lol.

This was abseiling down from Hay Tor and once we'd climbed up I really didn't want to go down. It took the instructor some time to cajole me into doing it and even came down partway - without ropes! - to start me off.

Once near the ground I didn't stop until I was actually lying on my back on the grass. If I remember rightly I was crying my eyes out all the way down so it was such a relief!

In the afternoon we went to the quarry near Hay Tor to make a raft, using what we'd learnt the afternoon before. Once built we took it in turns to be pulled across the quarry pond on the raft.

 

Some of our group in the above photos at Hay Tor having lunch and a break between activities, including Ian who was our leader from Devon Training For Skills who organised the course.

Us participants were undertaking a year course of employment training with jobs and training provided by local companies. This break on Dartmoor was to help bolster self-confidence and a very welcome opportunity to do things we probably wouldn't normally do. Like abseiling, lol!

It was a really enjoyable activity and I took a lot of photos.

 

I also took a photo of this old winch left here from quarrying. I didn't know at the time but there were also rails nearby for the trucks carrying the quarry stone away.

After that we went caving. I didn't appreciate the climb down into it very much, although I loved it otherwise, and enjoyed exploring limestone caves some 17 years later during my urbexing days.

At some point (probably after abseiling) I had a photo taken of just myself and then with the group. I honestly can't remember how the camera was set up or if someone else took it for us, but it was really good to have that record. 

 

On that evening was another night walk, which I didn't take part in. Instead those who stayed in enjoyed watching videos, including The Terminator, which I hadn't seen before. 

Then the next day was the morning clean-up. This photo is one of my all-time favourites and the best from this week.

And one with the ubiquitous 'rabbit ears'.

And then the journey back to Exeter. Once there I went straight to the Exeter Darkroom and developed my films. Although the course was only four days long it felt really weird to be on my own whilst walking through town. A fantastic week, which I'll forever be grateful for.

This one took rather a long time to do, what with editing and re-editing to get it right. Thankfully, I still have the diary from that year and was able to check out which days and activities matched. The funniest thing was a coincidence with a picture in my Winnie-The-Poo diary with lovely illustrations from the original books by Ernest H. Shepherd. You might not believe this, and I didn't know about it until I wrote it up afterwards, so I scanned the diary and appropriate pages.

(Some of my thoughts and the weekend concerning family stuff was personal so I blanked them out with black strips of paper. Redacted!)

Anyway, here it is at the top of the page below; an illustration of Piglet abseiling. Brilliant! :)

And there we have it!

This time I know exactly what's coming up next as I've also been working on that one at the same time; another Useful Books article about English churches, abbeys, priories & cathedrals. The main body of writing is almost done and I've taken the photos, which I've started post-editing, so it won't be too long before getting that one up.

I've also finally taken some more Fore Street, Beer photos. More about that at the end of the next post. The last day of September and I hope everyone's having a great Autumn, despite whatever's happening in the world; enjoy nature if you can and all best wishes until next time. :)

 

 

 

 

Other Photography: Old Slides

 

Now for something almost completely different! I have some very old slide photos, most of which were taken when I lived in Worcestershire before moving to Devon in 1977. Having done very little with them I thought it would be interesting to make an article to showcase them, especially as some have amazing colours.

These first few were taken in the garden of the house where I was born and grew up. Dad was an astonishingly good and enthusiastic gardener but I mostly concentrated on those little areas of quirkiness, rather than the showy vistas.

 

The one on the left is of apple blossom with daffodills and the one on the right is a pear tree. I say left and right because I've positioned them together, but they sometimes move to one below the other when published! And more apple blossom below, followed by a group of pansies with their cheery little faces.

And one taken at night, below.

One of the places I lived was a parish called Crabbs Cross, which has nothing to do with a moody crustacean, but was named after the crossroads it encompasses. There is a much older reason for the name, as I do recall hearing that it was named after a prayer cross which was erected by a man named Crabb. However, I haven't been able to verify that through research, even though that is the most likely explanation, and which has since been lost unfortunately.

These photos were taken through the windows of my bedroom in a house belonging to a friend in Crabbs Cross. Four more below.

I also lived in a rented maisonette in Crabbs Cross on my own for a while, which I absolutely loved, but the rent was too unaffordable and I eventually had to move. Sadly, I don't seem to have any photos of it.

Across the road I took this photo, which always reminds me of Monet's haystacks paintings. I have another one, even more so, but that and another two I remember aren't amongst the ones I've scanned and I don't know where they are now.

Nearby was the entrance to a wood, which I often walked through and across several fields in order to reach my parents house. The next three are ones taken on one of the walks when there were haystacks in the fields.

Another flat I had was in the main town of Redditch, which had lovely big kitchen windows and I took several photos of them during different times. That was the last place I lived in before moving to Devon

The above were taken mostly for the colours and plant shapes in the window, plus some more sillouettes - albeit out of focus - seen below.

 

I tried focussing them in post edit but it just made things worse. I quite like them as they are though, so I'm not that bothered.

 

And two more taken on a different day.

An odd shot of the kitchen worktop in that flat with an arrangement of fruit, bread and other bits & pieces.

Followed by some more looking through the kitchen window to the houses and hills beyond.

Plus the slight sillouette of a coffee mug filled with joss sticks on that last one.

The following three was an experiment using a chair with a decorative pattern of holes, beneath which I placed a lamp to see the effect.

This next one always reminds me of a grand piano at first glance due to the shape of the shadow behind it. I'm really pleased that I still have that chair and it's next to me at the kitchen table as I'm writing this.

Then there's a photo of an alleyway between housing in a terrace. Another name is Gunnel or Ginnel. I've usually used the term Gunnel although many just call it an alleyway.

The following slide was taken as the sun was begining to set through a window in the Redditch Advertiser newspaper, where I was the graphic designer and illustrator. I actually called myself the Art Department as I was the only one in it, even when the paper reached a massive amount of pages over 70 in number, lol.

I love this photo for the light, colour and composition, along with some good memories of my two years there before moving to Devon. 

The boating lake below is in the parish of Ipsley, Redditch, where I was born and my parents still lived.

It used to be fields and the meandering River Arrow plus tributaries, where us local children used to play. Before moving I had a wander round to see what it looked like and took the photo.

Below is either the river or one of the tributaries.

Some photos of the fairground during the Redditch Carnival next, which I went to with some friends. It was also a good opportunity to try out some nightime photos and I really like the bright colours and festival feel.

I belonged to a camera club at the time and put the best two plus the stream above those into the monthly competition, and was given a scathing review! I wasn't all that surprised, being the only female member, very much ignored and obviously unwanted. It didn't help that I'd joined along with my male friend who also happened to be my landlord, so we had the same address but with different surnames, lol. After all, this was the 70s!

These two slides were of the carnival lights, which I took from my office window at the Redditch Advertiser.

And now we move onto the Devon slides. There are only three of these. I have taken a lot more slides since but they aren't of this set which are by far older and interesting for their colour and condition.

A walk across the fields next and below that a walk along the cliff to or from Beer Village.

This final one was taken through the kitchen window of my first flat in Seaton. It was an old large house converted into six flats with odd dimensions. My flat had a massive living room, large main bedroom and a tiny kitchen plus tiny second bedroom. It was also haunted!

Next up will probably be the final part of the Weather Lore series. I started working on it a while ago before having almost five weeks of flu - or at least I thought I did until I went into the draft to see how far I've got. As it happens all I've put on the page is the title and one photo. Doh!

I've already completed quite a lot to the Devon Training Centre one so I might finish and publish that one instead. I'll see how it goes.

I really hope that everyone's well. Cheers 'til next time. :)